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Donovan fell in on Izzy's other side without being asked, his eyes tracking the same shadows Abraxos had already cleared. "You feel anything yet? From the mark?" He asked Sarah.

Sarah's hand lifted to her gaze before she caught herself and dropped it. "Nothing it hasn’t been doing. It's more like I'm prickling all over. Kind of like you get before a storm rolls in off the Gulf."

"That could mean a few things," Izzy suggested. "Pressure building could mean it's getting ready to push. Or it could mean your energy is drained and you’re drawing from an empty well."

"We can safely assume Lucifer is getting ready to make a move." Sarah's jaw tightened. "Let's get to that alley and check it out."

Izzy nodded and bounced on the balls of her feet. “We will meet you guys there.” The princess took off without waiting for a response, with Donovan right behind her.

Abraxos wrapped his arms around Sarah and took to the air. Everything was right with the world with his female tucked against his chest and her arms locked around his neck. The city slid beneath them in strings of gaslights and dark water.

Angel's Alley came up fast. It was a slot of cobblestones wedged between two rows of shuttered buildings. It widened at its far end into a small courtyard, where a fountain of angels stood sentinel over children carved from stone.

Abraxos brought them down in the lee of a whitewashed wall where the tourists wouldn't wander until well after sunrise. And then, it would only be the supernatural ones. The location was warded to keep humans from even noticing the alley. The courtyard was one of the many places that drew paranormals in the city. The Dark Warriors had secured several similar areas to keep humans from discovering their existence.

He recognized something was off the second they landed. "You feel that?" Sarah whispered before he sucked in a breath.

"I feel it." Abraxos kept one arm around her while he conjured his flaming sword in the other.

“Whoa there, big guy,” Izzy called out as she raced into the alley and nearly collided with his weapon. Donovan was right behind her.

Abraxos ignored her and kept scanning for danger. "Something’s off. Izzy, Donovan, scope out the perimeter. Don't go far. I don’t like this."

"Copy that." Izzy's sgian dubhs were in her hands, and she was already moving. Her vampire nature made her light on her feet, so her steps were silent on the cobblestones.

Sarah pulled away from him and crossed to the center of the courtyard. Stopping in the middle, she crouched and pressed her marked palm flat to the ground. The black brand flared bright enough to throw shadows up the whitewashed wall.

"Sarah." He kept his voice even, though the pressure behind his skull felt as if a balloon were inflating inside it. "Talk to me."

"Something is awake. It’s not Lucifer." Her breath came out unsteady. "Whatever it is, it knows I'm standing on top of it."

The ground split before she finished the sentence. It was just a hairline crack running from beneath her feet toward the fountain. Heat rolled up from it. It was thick enough to fog the air.

Abraxos had her by the waist and was moving before the crack finished widening. The tremor that followed knocked two of the fountain's stone angels clean off their pedestals. Fucking hell. He should have taken off the second he realized something was off.

"Move!" Izzy's shout cut across the alley as three shapes hauled themselves up out of the crack. They were low and broad-shouldered, with hides the mottled black of scorched earth. Their mouths were wide enough to swallow a head.

Abraxos set Sarah down behind a low stone bench against the alley wall and put his body between her and the demons climbing out of the ground. His blade began burning gold along its edge. "Stay down," he ordered her.

"This went from a simple scouting mission to a real one. I have to seal this. I can't do that from behind a wall, Abraxos." Sarah pushed back to her feet. Her palm was glowing violet-green. The magic was also climbing her forearms in ropes of light that hummed. "I have to be closer."

"That’ll get you killed." He met the first creature's lunge with a downward stroke that opened it from shoulder to hip. It came apart in a spray of ash that stank of a struck match that had been dipped in dog shit. Another one snuck up on them and hit him from the side hard enough to crack a rib. He felt the impact everywhere.

"Abraxos!" Sarah's scream had real fear in it. The bravado from moments ago was gone.

He got his feet back under him and drove his blade up through the creature's jaw. It let out a high-pitched scream that cracked two windows along the alley before it dissolved. Donovan came in from the left and put both of his daggers into the third creature's spine while Izzy took its legs out from under it with a spinning kick. The move would've looked showy in any other circumstance.

The crack in the cobblestones widened another foot. Heat poured out of it in a column that curled the leaves off a crooked banana tree growing straight up through the flagstones. Something rose up out of that steam. Shit. It had old power.

It was bigger than the bull-shaped Titan from the cemetery. Its shoulders were wide enough to blot out the whitewashed wall behind it. Its hide was a deep black shot through with veins of orange that pulsed like something breathing under the surface.

"That's not the same one we fought at the cemetery," Sarah called out from behind him, her voice pitched to carry over the low, grinding growl coming up out of the earth. "It's much bigger."

"I thought size didn't matter." Abraxos put himself squarely between her and the creature rising out of the ground. His wings mantled to their full width until they blotted out most of the light behind them. He held his blade low and ready. The weight was already shifting onto the balls of his feet.

"Any female who told you that lied straight to your face, Sparky," Sarah quipped. "Bigger just means it takes longer to kill. Try to keep up."

"I’ll try. Get behind Donovan," he told her.